Grades A'-dieu

I've never quite learned how to grade less. Part of the dilemma is the ingrained expectations that students develop that anything that is not collected and evaluated by a teacher is "for no reason." Another is that the completion rate and quality on any assignment increases substantially if "it's going to be collected."

Of course that leads to a major difficulty. Mountains of grading. I have turned to online grades in order to avoid the tedious task of calculating points and percentages every time progress grades are due. I never yearned to be an accountant, and grades are 90% accountancy. Dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, as Monty Python made famous.

Nevertheless, the grades/points still need to be entered to be calculated. I've never been able to avoid the importance of writing well, and so, most of my grading is evaluating essays. And, as a former editor, I find it next to impossible not to edit and correct the language on the papers as well. (This is beginning to sound mightily compulsive, isn't it?)

Like the Perfect Storm, it all comes together today by 3 pm. The insatiable computer must have all grades entered. It goes without saying that all the grading will not be completed by then, so, they are truly "progress" grades, or best estimates for where the student is currently, and where they are headed.

Two, three hours of evaluation and entering, and finally the grade machine is satisfied for now--but not for long. In four weeks, it will all be repeated again. I do think that I am developing a form of "grading block" this year, a close cousin of writer's block.

Luckily, most of my students have learned that for my courses, at least, grades are mere passing information on a broader journey, like the speed of a car. The goal isn't the grade but the journey, the scenery, and where you end up at the end. Grade reform must be about as old as the profession itself, but it's not something that we are currently tackling. Perhaps it is a nut that will never be cracked. All I know is that the amount of teaching time I invest in grades and grading never justifies the benefit.

Cheney's Torture Chamber

After discussing the meaning of realism and idealism as ways to approach political analysis, the class applied those analyses to several "case studies." The first was why they came to class today. The second, why Robert, a class member, never does homework. And, third, why vice president Cheney had argued to Senators that the US should be allowed, under certain circumstances, to commit torture.

This group of juniors and seniors had the most difficult time analyzing Cheney's message as idealism. The power component of realism was more familiar. We began with the basis of the vice president's argument, which basically boils down to one of sacrificing one life (and values) to save many. A version of the "ticking bomb" example.

Surprisingly, at least to me . . . no, maybe shockingly, one student after another began to defend the basic idea that torture was acceptable under certain cases, for example, if the government knew that the 9/11 attacks were going to take place and had a suspect in custody. "But it's just one person, and you would save thousands" was the most common type of rationale. Never mind that it was contrary to US law. Never mind that "cruel and unusual" punishment is unconstitutional. Never mind that the US is a signatory to the Convention on Torture, which clearly forbids torture.

A few hands went up uncomfortably at saying that torture was ok, let alone moral (to save lives), but only a few. I finally ask how many students, if it came to the decision, would allow torture under certain circumstances. More than half of the class agreed.

As an abstract concept, with the realities kept in dark corners and hidden from view, it is difficult for this group to condemn torture. We move the line. Is it ok if we're not sure we have the right suspect? Is it ok if the attack isn't immanent? Is it ok to find out if an attack is planned? Is it ok for political dissenters? Was it ok then for the Vietnamese to torture Americans during the War? More students begin to waffle. (Flip-floppers!)

This is the same group of students who universally condemned the weakness of people following authority by "torturing" others in the famous Milgram experiment. It is much harder to condone human behavior like torture when it becomes less abstract and more "real"; when it is less of a political debate over truth, and more of a concrete image of one human being torturing another. That "reality" is what is so difficult at times to bring to the classroom. It's what makes the Holocaust more than just some old black and white films and abstract arguments over racial theory. And keeping it abstract is what led to good German citizens closing their window shades as the trains rumbled past, and what led my students to resort to advocating barbarism for a good cause.

Hannibal Lecture

Sandra, an AVID teacher, hatched a really fun simulation for her class. As a contrived college-level lecture, I was asked to come to class, set up, and begin to spew information on introductory economics. No requirements to take notes, no interruptions, and if the flower dies on the window sill, just keep on going. Economics is a good subject for such an experience because it begins so deceptively simple. Definitions of words we already use in everyday speech, like cost, price, utility, goods, exchange. The difficulty begins almost immediately because those terms have very precise meanings in economics that may or may not relate very closely to what they mean in conversation.

As I begin, about half of the class begins to take notes. The rest just look more or less stunned. Then the eyes begin to glaze over. A few students actually begin to perk up as they find some of the ideas and information interesting. Of course, those are usually the students who are naturally curious about most things as it is.

Soon, what seemed so simple keeps snowballing into more complex ideas. Then the math comes, followed by that look of panic and terror that only math can truly inspire. By now, a few of those that were glazed at the beginning of the hour are dead asleep. But, this is "college." If they want to pay for a class that they sleep through, that's just fine with me. . . .

I'm actually enjoying this tremendously, since I used to teach the two-year IB (International Baccalaureate) Economics curriculum. Since the level of difficulty of the IB Economics exam was hefty, to say the least, most students avoided it like, well, economics. You couldn't pay non-IB seniors to persevere through the course. So, now, status quo ante, we have no economics courses at all. How American students can graduate with no formal understanding of economics in a society that so stresses economic life is beyond my understanding. But, I digress.

As the board fills with terms, arrows, graphs and equations examples become more critical. We talk eggs, Hilfiger jeans, and gasoline. Normal goods, inferior goods, substitutes, compliments, and surplus. As the hour nears end, I preview the next step in understanding the supply/demand graph and announce the test over the information on Monday. Like ancient frozen creatures receiving their first sun, sleeping students wake up at the word "test." My office hours are one day a week for one hour, if they have questions. Of course, (wink) that hour is when students can't see me. And, so it goes.

The exercise is excellent, because it brings to life for college-bound students what they have rarely experienced in education so far, independent, self-directed learning, as well as personal responsibility. The economics content is a means to that end, but what is dramatic is the passivity that we have ingrained in students. Not one student bothered to clarify or ask questions. The only question I got later in the day from a student who is also in my history class was, "The test on Monday won't cover all of that will it? It really isn't that hard is it?"

Yes, Virginia, it really is.

Words of Note

Taking notes has to be the world's oldest professional activity of a teacher. And students have been passing notes since clay tablets and Sanskrit. I could have stacks of notes over the years, and I've often thought that a bestseller would be to compile them into a book titled, What your children really think, in their own words.

What is acceptable in those notes changes from time to time, both with what is appropriate to communicate to the receiver of the note, and what is OK to put in writing. The following are a few samples of current letter writing from the student masses . . .

Interchanges:
"I should work."
"hahaha . . . I can work at home. :-) For now, I'm having fun."
"u have a class this is not fun time."
"Fun u can have at home."
NO! I wanna have fun right now. :-) I am doing my work now."
"good girl what u mean with fun?"
"I do anything to have fun! Doesn't matter what it is."
"ok . . ."
"Mostly drinking and partying :-) THAT'S FUN!"

"It's normal that a guy doesn't know what Midol is."
"Then what is it?"
"Theyre cramp pills. U know when ur in your per."

"Yeah a lot I listen 2 a lot of music every kind nearly, but I prefer Bob Marly"
"Oh yea, those are good singers. When I was listening to German music, I really like it. Sounds cool."

"U can't smash on my butt."
"Oh really, I think I can."
"No, I'm 2 hot 4 u"
"Oh FINE! MEANY. But yes you are hot."
"That's not mean, that's just the truth."

"Dear *
Yes, I remember the last note I gave you said that I wanted to * your brains out, but recently I've had a change of heart. I liked you ginuinly, but since yor going out with ------, I find it pointless for my feelings to exist any longer. . . . All past experiences with you will be remembered, but none will happen in the future. If you want to talk, call me after 4 pm.
Now without Love,
----------"

It's the notes that try to be poems that are really bathetic. I've spared you that. I respectfully have no further comment.

Pugilism

I confess that I have only been in one actual fight during adolescence. It was one I tried to avoid, but when (no pun intended) push came to shove, there was no escape. As it turned out, my opponent ended up tripping and cutting his lip, and that was the end of that.

Today, for some oddball reason, students who know each other ended up in a fight in the business technology classroom. Why it happened is still a matter of rumor and multiple eyewitnesses seeing different things, but the drama was quite intense.

Because it took place in a room full of computers, our tech estimates that there could be about $8,000 worth of damage. That's quite a fight. And a disaster. I have no doubt that my father's stories about fights in his high school are accurate. And, I saw a minor stabbing in my own rural high school, where little ever happened. It isn't the fighting that has exactly changed and escalated in the last generation, but the quantity and quality.

Fights seem to break out over the most mundane of comments and even misunderstandings. The tolerance level seems to have taken a turn southward and never recovered. "Mugging" me, that is staring at me the wrong way, or what I think is the wrong way, is an invitation to fists. And the resort to weapons doesn't seem to be far behind.

While this kind of out-of-control behavior, rolling over tables of computers and reeking havoc, is bizarre to me, it does seem to be within the context of our social and cultural expectations. There isn't any question that we are saturated daily with violence and the resort to violence. Americans don't honor peacemaking or the heroism of walking away confidently. The John Wayne syndrome, inherited by Dirty Harry and perpetuated by street culture is the American way. How can schools win that one?